


carry on my wayward son

by sleeponrooftops



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeponrooftops/pseuds/sleeponrooftops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five times it hurts, and the one time it cures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	carry on my wayward son

**Author's Note:**

> Notes —
> 
> i. I’ve probably been subconsciously thinking about this since I first heard the song, but it came alive in my head recently. The song, you ask? [The lullaby](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kf8a3vcjUc).

_one._

Mary wakes to the sound of Dean’s little voice, “Mommy!”

 

John groans softly from behind her, but Mary reaches back a hand and rubs a hand over his shoulder, smiling.  “I got it,” she whispers, leaning down to kiss his temple and smoothing back his hair, “Go back to sleep.”

 

“I love you,” he says with a soft smile before he rolls over and falls back into slumber.

 

“I love you, always,” Mary whispers before she slips from the bed slowly, one hand braced against her round stomach.

 

Dean’s voice rings out again, his voice pitching up into a sob, “Mommy!”

 

“I’m coming, my little love,” she says as she pads out of her room and across the hall to Dean’s room.  When she pushes open the door, he’s not in his bed, and Mary pauses, fear tripping through her heart and stilling her feet.  “Darling?” she says aloud, her voice soft and careful.

 

“Mommy,” Dean whimpers, tumbling out of the closet and barreling into her, arms swinging around to clasp around her legs.  He trembles, crying against her bare legs, but she’s staring at the closet, a buried instinct singing through her.

 

“What is it, sweetie?” she asks quietly, not looking away from the closet.

 

“There was a scary man in the window, mommy.  He wouldn’t go away, so I hidded in the closet.”

 

“Dean,” she gasps, reaching for him blindly around her stomach until he looks up and grasps her hand, letting himself be pulled up.  Mary lifts him, and he curls around her as best as he can, arms hugged around her and face buried in her shoulder.  She carries him to the window, one hand braced against the back of his head, holding him there, fingers soothing through his short hair as she stares out at the dark world.

 

“He had yellow eyes, mommy,” Dean whispers, and Mary closes her eyes, squeezing him.

 

“It was just a nightmare, baby,” Mary murmurs before she presses a kiss to his temple and brings him over to his bed.  She eases him down and tucks him in, sitting on the edge when he’s snug again.  Dean reaches for her, lower lip trembling and his green eyes wide and fearful.  “Little love,” she coos, leaning down to kiss his forehead, “You’re okay, I promise.  Mommy will keep you safe, always.”  Dean sniffles, and Mary sighs, scooting closer so she can run a hand through his hair, thumb stroking over his temple occasionally, and she smiles before she sings, the words coming as though they were made just for him, “Carry on my wayward son.  There’ll be peace when you are done.  Lay your weary head to rest.  Don’t you cry no more.”

 

She’s barely finished the last line when his breathing slows, his green eyes closed, and the worried line of his mouth smooth.  She starts to sing again when the little baby shifts inside her, a soft movement, and she smiles, lifting a hand to her stomach.  “My little boys,” she says before she makes sure Dean is safe and comfortable before leaving him.  At the door, she pauses and looks back, staring at Dean for a long moment before she says, “Sweet dreams, my little love.”

 

_two._

Dean yawns, kicking back his blankets and sliding blindly out of bed.  He stretches briefly, but then Sammy’s cry breaks the silence of the night again, and he groans, yawning again as he pads down the hall and into his little brother’s room.  “Sammy,” he whines, rubbing at his eyes as Sam’s cry pitches into a scream.

 

Dean reaches over the edge of the crib, leaning up on his tiptoes, and Sam makes grabby hands at him, mouth trying to form his name as Dean sighs and lifts him out.  He remembers to be careful like his mommy taught him, and he cradles Sam against him, carefully carrying him across the room to the two rocking chairs.  One of them is smaller, his rocking chair, so he doesn’t have to try to clamber up onto his mommy’s without her there, and he sinks into this one, pushing against the ground lightly with his feet as he rocks Sammy.

 

“You’re gonna wake up the whole damn neighborhood,” he mumbles, reciting what his father always teasingly says to Sam when he’s having one of his fits.

 

Sam’s face scrunches up and his mouth opens, but Dean stumbles into a lullaby before Sammy can let out the wail, “Once I rose above the noise and confusion, just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion, I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high.”

 

Sam is calm again immediately, letting out a little noise that makes Dean smile.  He keeps singing, the words resting deep in him, his mother’s voice ringing through him as he sings Sammy back to sleep.  He keeps singing until his own eyes droop, and he sinks in against the rocking chair, letting it slow to a stop until he’s holding Sammy loosely against him, brothers in slumber.

 

When Dean wakes, it’s to screaming and his father shaking him and a roaring heat.  “Take your brother outside as fast as you can,” his daddy says, thrusting Sam into his arms, “Don’t look back.”

 

Dean stares at him, not understanding, and someone is still screaming, and it sounds like his mommy.  “Now, Dean!” his daddy yells, and he’s never yelled before, and Dean nods, scrambling out of bed with Sammy in his arms.  He pauses at his door, looking back, and he sees tears on his father’s face for the last time.  “Go!” his daddy pleads.

 

Dean runs, not looking back, not stumbling to a halt by Sammy’s room, not staring at his mommy, not letting tears trip down his face as her beautiful eyes swivel to see him, not seeing her inhale a last time, and he hears her voice, “Carry on my wayward son,” before his father bangs out of his room, and Dean keeps running blindly through his tears, holding onto his mother’s voice in his head until he’s outside, and then he clings to Sammy, sobbing.

 

_three._

Sam kneels there, his chest rising and rising and rising and falling in erratic shifts, his breaths coming short and quick, dragged up through his throat, raw and aching.  He can barely see Dean through the mess of tears clouding his vision and staining his cheeks, dripping down his chin, wetting his shirt.  He’s still clutching Dean’s shirt sleeve, his fingers bunched in the material, and he closes his eyes finally when Ruby lays a hand on his shoulder.

  
“We should go,” she says, and Sam shakes his head.

 

He tries to say _not without him, not without my brother, not without my Dean_ , but he can’t get the words out, and so he just shrugs out of her touch, pulls his arm across his face, and sets about gathering Dean’s dead weight in his arms.  He can barely stand, even without Dean, but the heaviness of him just makes it so much more real, makes it so much more final.

 

Sam takes staggering steps out of the house, and he can hear Ruby trying to talk to him, but he just shakes his head, begging her to stop, and keeps going, carrying his big brother outside.

 

He can’t lose him.  He _needs_ him.

 

Sam curls his arms tighter around Dean and keeps walking, even when Ruby grabs onto him and tries to stop him, he keeps going because he can’t stop now, he can’t stop until he has his brother back.

 

Ruby gives up eventually and just walks behind him.  Sam hates the silence, though, hates that Dean isn’t bouncing their shoulders together and grinning with the still fading adrenaline from a job well done, hates that he won’t hear Dean catcall into the coming night, won’t slide behind the wheel of the Impala with an obscene purr and jab Sammy, quick against the arm, and start singing until Sam laughs and joins in.

 

So he sings for him, thinking of all the times Dean has soothed him back to sleep, fingers petting through his hair, his voice soft and calming as he does his best to mimic what Mary did for him.  His voice is wobbly and wrecked, but he keeps going, keeps going until he’s out of breath and he hits the ground with hard knees, curling over Dean and breaking apart.

 

“Though my eyes could see, I still was a blind man.  Though my mind could think, I still was a mad man.  I hear the voices when I’m dreaming, I can hear them say…”

 

_four._

Dean loathes seeing Sammy likes this.  He can’t stand the sight of him broken, can’t stand that he can’t do anything to help him get better, can’t stand that he’s locked him down here and is letting him detox, and he knows that watching him is his own form of punishment.

 

And so he comes down every so often, muttering to Bobby that he’s just checking on him, but he knows it’s because he needs to see him, needs to know he’s still in there, needs to be _near_ him.

 

It’s destroying him to think that his baby brother, his _Sammy_ , is so inherently broken that he can’t do what he always promised he would.

 

“Dean,” Sam’s voice croaks suddenly, and Dean’s head jerks up, eyes finding Sam.  He’s curled up on his cot, shaking.  “Dean,” he says again, his voice a little more desperate, “Are you there?”

 

Dean doesn’t answer, too afraid that this isn’t his _brother_ , but the demon blood inside of him.  “ _Dean_ ,” Sam sobs, the tremors increasing, “I need you.”

 

Dean fights the urge to cry, lifts his fist and presses it against his mouth, forcing down the tears and the comfort he wants so badly to give Sam.

 

“Dean, _please_ ,” Sam says, his voice pitching upward before it shatters, and then he’s shaking because he’s crying, and Dean can’t keep silent, not now, not ever.

 

He does the only thing he can trust himself with, and he sings softly, almost too low for Sam to hear, “Carry on my wayward son.  There’ll be peace when you are done.  Lay your weary head to rest.  Don’t you cry no more.”  He knows Sam can hear him, though, because his sobs start to falter and die off, his shoulders stop shaking, and he shifts a little toward Dean.

 

When he finishes, Sam’s body has stilled altogether, and he’s still a little crooked, always reaching for his brother.  Dean carefully closes the distance between them, peering over Sam’s big shoulders and smiles when he sees his eyes closed.  He leans down and presses a kiss to his sweaty forehead.  “I’m here, Sammy,” he promises before he leaves him to sleep.

_five._

It’s been just over a full week.

 

Dean looks like a zombie, and Sam wants to smack him.  They’d done a job—messily, of course—only two days after Bobby died, and Sam knows it was because Dean needed to let it out, needed to tear something apart so that it would feel his pain, but he also knows that’s not what Dean needs, it never has been, and when they got back from the job, he jumped into Leviathan research like it was a new monster.

 

He’s been digging around, taking notes, pinning up random things, and only some of it makes sense, but Sam keeps making sandwiches and supplementing his beer for water and juice—and one time milk, but Dean caught on too fast and nearly threw it at him—in the hopes that he’ll get the hint that he needs to keep up his sustenance in other respects.

 

And now it’s day nine, and Dean is slumped on the sofa, a marathon of _The Three Stooges_ playing on the television, and a beer in hand.  When Sam comes into the living room from his own room, fed up with feeling claustrophobic, he’s just about had it, and if he has to fight him into unconsciousness, he damn will.

 

He comes around the sofa, footfalls heavy, opens his mouth to start the argument, and promptly chokes on air, quickly lifting his arm to muffle the noise.

 

Dean is _asleep_.

 

A commercial comes on, and Dean shifts, brow furrowing, and Sam launches into the only thing he knows, with absolute certainty, will keep Dean asleep—he sings.

 

“Carry on, you will always remember.”

 

Dean inhales, Sam stops, the commercial changes, and then Sam keeps going as soon as Dean emits a soft groan, “Carry on, nothing equals the splendor.  Now your life’s no longer empty.  Surely heaven waits for you.”

 

Dean settles, and Sam keeps going like he always has, keeps waiting for his brother to admit that he’s not okay, that he hasn’t been since dad’s death.  He carefully sits next to his brother and reaches out for his hand, holding it loosely with his own, and, as he sings, he shifts until he’s leaning against Dean, and he doesn’t remember if he’s slept this past week, or if he’s just been hovering over Dean, waiting for him to break and not willing to break himself, and that’s the first time the both of them sleep since their other dad died.

_six._

Sam’s stretched out on one of the sofas in their new, massive living room, a book resting on his chest, and his arm thrown over his eyes.  He’s been having trouble sleeping lately, just thinking about everything that’s going on and everything that’s going to come.  He’s terrified of the Trials, but he knows that he’s going to have to do them, not Dean—not again, he can’t let his brother go again, he can’t put him through _anything_ again, he’s too broken, and he’s going to die one of these times and not come back, and Sam can’t live without him.

 

Sam sighs, lifting his arm to rub at his face with both palms, and, when he pulls them away, he sees stars for a few seconds before he blinks them away and stares at the ceiling.

 

He’s so tired.

 

“Carry on my wayward son.  There’ll be peace when you are done.  Lay your weary head to rest.  Don’t you cry no more,” Dean’s voice grows with volume as he gets closer to the living room, and he’s not even singing loudly, just singing to himself, but it makes Sam smile.

 

He hasn’t heard their song in so long from Dean, hasn’t sung it himself since Bobby, and he closes his eyes as he listens to Dean continue, listens to him break off sometimes and just hum it, listens to him get loud and happy, listens to him get quieter, softer.  He listens to him shuffling around the bunker, listens to him clanking around in the kitchen, listens to him scuff his feet for a few steps and then pick them up because Sam always whines at him, listens to the sounds he makes, his voice and his feet and his steady breathing until Dean’s lifting the book from Sam’s slowly moving chest, smiling down at his sleeping brother.

 

“Sweet dreams, Sammy,” he whispers before going to dump into one of the other sofas with Sam’s book and his lunch, comfortable in the quiet presence of his baby brother, the only person he’s ever truly needed, the only person he’ll never let go of again, because he can’t live without him, can’t find the will to keep going unless Sam is at his side.

 

Dean looks over at Sam and smiles before setting the book and plate on the floor and shifting until he can nap in peace.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my head for so long, but I’ve been so busy with my through-the-seasons wincest and crazy abaddean, and I just totally forgot about it until I had _Angeles_ on repeat, and then I got bored and put this on, and I was like, OH MY GOD I HAVE FREE TIME. It’s totally because we started our marathon rewatch yesterday, and season one is just so adorable, and I’m going to stop rambling. I hope you guys enjoyed this, and don’t forget to leave your thoughts!


End file.
